At 09:03 AM 4/3/04 -0500, R. A. Hettinga wrote: >At 1:26 PM -0800 4/2/04, Major Variola (ret) wrote: >>Physics, because large entities have different properties (eg >>surface-to-mass ratio; inertia) than small entities. > >Well, certainly, that's the current wisdom about such things. > >However, I'm talking about markets, and firms, which are all >creatures of information flow. As William Gibson put it once, a >corporation is a being which eats information and shits money.
We are talking about mercs, not selling bits on MercNet. Mercs are physical. Thus their resources (satellites, rockets, tanks, etc) are *controlled* by Men With Guns. Who don't like to share the shiniest toys. >In those terms, then, since, Coase's theorem again, reduced >transaction cost (lowered by lower information gathering, and most >important to cypherpunks, lower transaction *security* costs lowering >transaction execution/settlement/clearing) how do we get the large >behavior current in modern markets without large firms? Cheaper info cuts out middlemen, sure; but it does nothing to permit mercs access to physical-technology that they need in the physical world. >Lots of little devices acting in common, in their own self interest, >using markets to price their services. Devices are physical. MwG control the physical. >Somewhere, on the Shipwright site, is a John Young - discovered DOD >paper from the mid-90's about "The Mesh and The Net", which looks >like a toe-hold on the idea of geodesic warfare. I used to joke about >keeping the landmines in your front yard paid or they wouldn't let >you out the door. :-). Sure, meshes mean you may not need satellites or fixed base stations for your comms. Big deal. The mesh-radios may be controlled, and regardless, you need more than radios to be a merc. Get that through your head. >So, I would bet that lower costs of market entry means that smaller >firms could compete in large, temporary groups, in the same way that >market sell-off stampedes happen, only with guns. You're too stuck on bits and forgetting about atoms. >The net allows more collaboration between the troops without central >control, Yawn. Disintermediation will happen, its just not enough. Atoms matter.
